Drug Discovery Toward Antagonists of Methyl-Lysine Binding Proteins
J. Martin Herold, Lindsey A Ingerman, Cen Gao, Stephen V Frye*
Center for Integrated Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
Abstract
The recognition of methyl-lysine and -arginine residues on both histone and other proteins by specific “reader” elements is important for chromatin regulation, gene expression, and control of cell-cycle progression. Recently the crucial role of these reader proteins in cancer development and dedifferentiation has emerged, owing to the increased interest among the scientific community. The methyl-lysine and -arginine readers are a large and very diverse set of effector proteins and targeting them with small molecule probes in drug discovery will inevitably require a detailed understanding of their structural biology and mechanism of binding. In the following review, the critical elements of methyl-lysine and -arginine recognition will be summarized with respect to each protein family and initial results in assay development, probe design, and drug discovery will be highlighted.
Keywords: Histones, chromatin, chemical probes, reader domains, methyl-lysine, methyl-arginine, post-translational modifications, pi-cation interactions, drug discovery.
Article Information
Article History:
Received Date: 26/1/2011
Revision Received Date: 22/2/2011
Acceptance Date: 25/4/2011
Electronic publication date: 22/8/2011
Collection year: 2011
© Herold et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Center for Integrated Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA; Tel: 919-843-5486; Fax: 919-843-8465; E-mail: svfrye@email.unc.edu
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Manuscript submitted on 26-1-2011 |
Original Manuscript |
Drug Discovery Toward Antagonists of Methyl-Lysine Binding Proteins |